


A note toward an article for the Journal of Theoretical Demonology

by Phoebe_Zeitgeist



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, Yami No Matsuei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 15:26:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Zeitgeist/pseuds/Phoebe_Zeitgeist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Muraki-sensei geeks out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A note toward an article for the Journal of Theoretical Demonology

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [just like the good old days](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/8246) by Incandescens. 



> This was a response to a drabble by the brilliant incandescens, in the form of a note from Grell Sutcliffe to Muraki. It took root in my brain -- letters are by their nature designed to be answered, after all -- and she kindly gave me leave to steal her scenario and run with it. Not that I ran very far.
> 
> It will make no sense at all unless you read "just like the good old days" first,* but that shouldn't be any kind of hardship. 
> 
> Canon: Compliant with the first anime series, and the manga to date, but not with the second anime series.
> 
> *And perhaps not even then.

My dear Grell,

What a pity. And you would have enjoyed the Tokyo office so much, too -- but then, perhaps that was the problem. One could wish that the Gushoshin were less capable translators, or that your William and Tokyo's Tatsumi Seiichirou were less inclined to share information.

But let us speak of less depressing matters. I promise you, I have not forgotten your Sebastian. Very much to the contrary. -- Do put down the scythe, my dear, I don't mean it that way. Lovely as he is, my Tsuzuki outshines him as the moon outshines the lesser stars of Heaven. Or if he does not, is at least very much more to my taste.

But the matter is more complicated, and more interesting, than you had given me reason to hope. Indeed, it may provide a key to one of the old mysteries of our art. Practitioners have wondered just why it is that powerful demons -- and it seems that it is always the Powers, not lesser demonic spirits -- trouble themselves with contracts to humans. After all, they don't need to do it in order to feed; in fact, having a contract in place can result in their going hungry for much longer than they would have in its absence.

Your Sebastian's case points us toward a possible answer. If my guess is right, these contracts operate to protect demons from the summoning and binding spells to which they are so surprisingly vulnerable. Not to trouble you with too much technical detail, but it's not unlike the ways certain molecular signals operate in the human body. While the analogy is far from exact, you could think of summoning and binding spells as working, at a technical level, by attaching themselves to vulnerable aspects of a demon's essential being, in much the same way that a signaling protein might bind to the receptors of the cells of a human body. A contract with a human is simply one particular and powerful summoning and binding spell, one that binds to those receptor sites preferentially and thus makes them unavailable as targets. In the case of such a contract the process appears to be cumulative over the life of the agreement: every order issued under it forms a new binding, and occupies more of the receptor sites that need to be available to allow an attack from any third party to succeed. Over time, the effect is to make the demon very nearly invulnerable. (Except to the contractor, of course, in those rare cases where the contractor is not so overwhelmed by the demon that he has no meaningful ability to act.)

With that as background and starting point, we can see just how clever your Sebastian has been. In the ordinary case, a human's contract with a demon is terminated upon the completion of whatever service the demon has offered as consideration. The contractor dies, and the demon devours the contractor's soul, extinguishing it. At that point the contract and all the bindings formed pursuant to it are dissolved, and the demon is vulnerable once more.

Not so in this case. That your Sebastian remains your Sebastian, more than a century after you first encountered him, is an indication that his contract of the time remains in force. Yet we know that his then-contractor is long dead. The only possible conclusion, based on all the information available to us, is that rather than feed upon his contractor's soul, he has chosen to preserve and sustain it, and to seek his nourishment elsewhere. If so it is well hidden: I can find no trace of that soul in any of the realms to which I have access, suggesting that it is housed and guarded in a place beyond reach of any foreseeable attackers, ourselves very much included.

So the matter is not, as you had initially thought, a simple matter of identifying the correct summons. We are faced with an accretion of bindings laid over the course of more than a century, under which each party has bound the other countless times, in ever more intricate and idiosyncratic patterns. It will be an armor that by now may be invulnerable to any attack. To succeed, we would need to undo the layers of spells one by one, in the correct sequence, and there would be no room for error.

The practical challenges will be obvious to you. The process would be a lengthy one, and I do not currently see a way to do it that would not attract our target's attention. And in the absence of any effective means of binding him at once, his attention would be, let us say, unhelpful. A direct attack on the underlying contract, even if it were possible, would be counterproductive; should we succeed, we would only destroy the very Sebastian we wish to bind. (A demon would remain, to be sure. But not, perhaps, a demon you wanted.) Destroying the contractor, should that prove to be possible, would have similarly unfortunate results. (Yes, I do realize you would very much like to. I'm sorry.) Nor can we approach the problem indirectly by summoning and binding the contractor, who, if we could find him, is guarded from such an attack by the very same contract that protects Sebastian.

As a defense, it is both ingenious and elegant. Your Sebastian is one hell of an artist. I admire that, however inconvenient it may be as a practical matter.

So for the time being I can only recommend patience. I have no intention of giving the problem up as insoluble; it's far too interesting for that. But you should know that instant gratification isn't in the cards.

But then, perhaps that is not so very unfortunate. We have been friends long enough, I trust, that you will forgive my observation that in the end, you always do prefer the hunt to the kill. Properly regarded, all of this merely prolongs the pleasures of the hunt. I hear you protest, my dear -- but do recall our little adventure with your William. The preparations were entertaining, the execution was a pleasure, and you were deliriously happy with the results.

For two days. And it was less than a week later that you found it necessary to ask me to undo the binding spells. And to lock away all of William's memories of the preceding eight days. And to lock away the memories of those eight days for everyone else in the Division.

Good times. You're quite right, I must arrange a visit to London. It's been far, far too long. Will William give you holiday time voluntarily, do you think, or will I need to arrange to stand in his office and smile at him until he instructs you to encourage me to leave?

As ever,

K.


End file.
